Everyone is reevaluating their priorities. With all the upheaval in society, we have to ask, “What matters most?”
For us, Jesus Christ is the paramount priority. Our first desire is to know and be known by him. “To live is Christ . . .” Paul says (Phil. 1:21). In a time of resignation and reluctance, we enter a season of Recommitment in November.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Jesus, you said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). I know, and you know better, that my love for you has faltered. My heart and soul are bent toward self. My mind is easily distracted and my strength fails. But I know you are gracious. Forgive me. Show me loving kindness. Reform my heart and soul, mind and strength, that I may be fully devoted to you. Amen.
Word: Mark 13:32-33
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.”
Meditation
It makes for quite the fantastic scene, doesn’t it? The end of the world. The sun and moon darkened. Stars falling from the sky. In other places the Bible talks about famines and earthquakes, a great war between a dragon and the angels of heaven.
Just that phrase, the end of the world, can evoke images that are confusing and exciting and scary all at once … like a fever dream from the mind of Steven Spielberg or J.J. Abrams. It’s no wonder so many books and movies and shows select as their subject matter some sort of existential threat to the world as we know it. And ending of sorts, after which things will never be the same.
And make no mistake, the end is coming. The biblical story is linear. It’s not cyclical where things go around and around and around. And it’s not indefinite where things just keep going as they always have been. The biblical story is linear. There is a beginning … creation. And there is an end … when Jesus returns and the great work of God to redeem and renew his fallen creation is complete and all things will be made new in Jesus.
The end is coming and in the timeline of the biblical story it’s the next and final chapter. Now, that’s not to say that Jesus is coming back tomorrow or next year or even in our lifetimes. As Jesus himself says, no one knows that day or hour. But it is to say that in the scope of the biblical story the return of Jesus is next. That could be the next hour, the next week or year or the next millennium. But it’s next.
And Jesus says be on guard. Keep awake. There’s a sense of vigilance and focused attention. It’s the same word Jesus will say to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane just one chapter later. Stay awake, stay on task. To those who are waiting for the master to return, Jesus says stay awake.
We pray: O God, you are my beginning and my end. All things hold together in you. Help me to stay alert, to be attentive to you and what you are doing in the world today. Amen.
Prayer
Gracious God, be with me today. Teach me to do your will, not in words but in power. Help me to desire your will and your ways. With you I begin, and with you I continue and end. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Benediction
May the blessing of the eternal God be upon us and upon our work;
His light to guide us,
His presence to strengthen us,
His love to unite us;
Now and always. Amen.